


Heaven is a Place on Earth

by ButterscotchCandybatch



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-04 08:34:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButterscotchCandybatch/pseuds/ButterscotchCandybatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson returns from Afghanistan a month after Sherlock Holmes has jumped from the roof of St Bart’s. John knows nothing of Sherlock Holmes, or why everyone around him is acting so strangely, but he is about to find out…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heaven is a Place on Earth

Captain John Watson sat in his hospital bed with his laptop and ran his eye down the column of rooms for rent. He sighed and clicked further down the list. He was being very strict with himself, only rooms he could afford on his army pension. When he was returned to London as an invalid he did not want to have to move in with Harry. So much as he hated the idea of leaving the army, needs must, and he was looking for something suitable in central London. Except that nothing was coming up. If was prepared to move to Cardiff he could have had his choice of rooms or even his own flat, but he wanted to live in London, had always lived in London.

He clicked down the list again, nothing, nothing, too expensive, too far away, wait… Baker St? He double checked the address. Definitely Baker St, and at a price he could afford. So what if it was tiny or had no bathroom or his flatmate was crazy? Whatever the catch was he would deal with it when he got there. He was willing to put up with a lot to live in London. He clicked on “Contact Agent”.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

John limped up the stairs and knocked on the door of 221 Baker St, managing both his cane and his suitcase with difficulty. The door was opened by an older lady who, according to the advertisement, was the landlady.

“Mrs Hudson? Hello, I’m John Watson.”

“Yes, I’ve been expecting you. The agent said you’d be around this afternoon.” She smiled and ushered him into the hall. “The flat is just up this set of stairs. You can manage the stairs can you? Good. It’s the upstairs bedroon which is for rent, I hope you knew that.”

“Yes, I can manage. Can you tell me who lives in the lower bedroom? Might as well know the worst about my flatmate immediately.”

Mrs Hudson’s smile froze. “Oh dear. You don’t know about Sherlock Holmes? Where have you been?”

John stiffened. “I’ve been working as a doctor in Afghanistan for the last three years. I’ve just returned to London a month ago and spent most of that time in hospital.”

“Of course, of course.” Mrs Hudson bit her lip as if unsure of how to proceed. “Well, Sherlock Holmes… He jumped…”

John tried to imagine the rest of that sentence when Mrs Hudson’s voice failed _. He jumped… ship? Jumped bail? Jumped the country? Jumped over a candlestick?_

Mrs Hudson finally found her voice again, “Anyway, his brother is paying the rent to keep the room for him, just as it is. The door is locked and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t disturb any of his things.”

“Of course not,” John tried to keep his voice sympathetic. Secretly, he was pleased. A cheap room in central London and no flatmate to share with – a dream come true! As soon as he was moved in he could start looking for a job. And if this mysterious Sherlock Holmes returned from wherever it was he had jumped to, well, John would deal with that when it happened.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

John had been living in 221B Baker Street for just over a week when he got the strange feeling he was not alone there. It was little things at first, but either he was as crazy as his therapist thought, or there was someone else living in the flat with him after all.

The first thing he noticed was his teacups being moved around. Since leaving the army, John had relaxed his attitude to washing up, and frequently left a teacup or two lying on the coffee table. He was sure they had been on the coffee table, where he had been watching telly before going to bed. Except now they were all on the table under the window, as if someone had cleared the coffee table. He hadn’t done that himself, had he?

The next thing was the lack of milk. John liked milk in his tea and he had bought a whole carton of milk just the other day, and now there was only a few drops left in the bottom. He hadn’t drunk that much tea in just two days, had he? Where had it gone?

And then there was the violin music. John still had nightmares from his time in Afghanistan, and occasionally he woke in the middle of the night, sweating and blinking rapidly to clear the visions from his eyes. One time, at 3am, he thought he heard violin music emanating from the downstairs room. He must have been imagining it, surely? Even if the elusive flatmate had returned, why would he be playing the violin at 3am?

# # # # # # # # # # # #

One morning John walked into the kitchen to find a microscope on the kitchen table. This was proof. It was definitely not his – it must belong to this Sherlock Holmes person. Ah, well, they were bound to meet sooner or later. John resigned himself to sharing the bathroom after all.

He made himself some tea and toast and carried it into the living room in order to catch the morning news while he ate breakfast. Except that he nearly dropped it when he saw a strange man wearing a dressing gown sitting on the sofa with some folders of paper and photographs spread all over the coffee table.

“Oh! You startled me.” John hardly knew what to say, as the stranger lifted his gaze to stare at John. “I’m John Watson, I’ve, um, taken the upstairs room.” There was another long pause. “You must be Sherlock Holmes, Mrs Hudson mentioned you had… um, gone… so, er, I didn’t realize you had come back.”

“I live here, obviously, and I’d appreciate it if you could do me a favour. I need these files returned to New Scotland Yard. To Detective Inspector Lestrade, to be precise. I have noted the information which will close these cases,” he waved one long hand over the files closed on the table, “and I will return the rest when they are solved. Please give them only into the hands of Lestrade himself. There are others at the Yard who do not approve of my involvement there.”

John stared at his presumption.

Sherlock sighed. “You are on your way to work, it will only take you a moment to drop past the Yard. I have some more research to do.” He disappeared into his room, presumably to get dressed, and did not reappear by the time John did, in fact, have to leave for his shift at the clinic. He had a late start, so he took the files with him. Always best to get started on a good footing, even with a very strange and somewhat presuming flatmate.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

“My name is John Watson. I’d like to see Detective Inspector Lestrade, please.” John said to the Sergeant at the desk.

She looked him over with suspicion. “He’s a busy man, what is it regarding?”

“These files I need to return.” He gestured vaguely to his briefcase.

“What?” she shot to her feet. “What are you doing with police files? I’ve never seen you before, and you don’t work here.”

“The files aren’t mine. They are from Sherlock Holmes.”

The sergeant’s eyes narrowed. “Really. And what do you have to do with Sherlock Holmes?”

“I’ve just moved into 221B Baker St and quite honestly I could do with getting some of the mess out of the flat, so if Lestrade wants his files back here they are. I’ve done my civic duty by bringing them back here at all.”

“Yes, I suppose you have.” She gave him one more long stare, then buzzed the intercom on her desk. “Lestrade, you better come down to the front desk. You’ll want to see this.”

Barely a minute later a silver-haired senior police officer appeared. He looked busy and harried. “Donovan, what is it now?” He looked briefly at John, and dismissed him from his attention.

“This is John Watson, he says he has some files from Sherlock Holmes for you.”

Lestrade turned and stared at John. “You’d better come up to my office.”

Once the office door closed behind them, Lestrade turned to John and held out his hand. “Let me see those files please.”

John handed them over without comment. Lestrade flicked open the cover of the first folder. “Oh yes, I remember this one – cold case from a few years ago. Hmm, Sherlock’s handwriting all over it. Shit, he never learned not to write in the bloody files. Least he could have done was get a fresh sheet of paper, for goodness sake. Still, it appears to be solved.” He looked at John. “Have you read these files? How much do you know about all this?”

John shrugged. “The files appear to be all solved and closed. That’s all. I didn’t read them, just brought them back here.”

“And how much do you know about Sherlock Holmes?”

John shrugged again. “Not much, only what Mrs Hudson has told me.”

“Well, whatever you hear, Sherlock Holmes was the best investigator and the best detective we ever had around here. I wish we had him back, but these cold cases are better than nothing. Thanks for bringing them by.” Lestrade walked John back to the front of the building and shook his hand. “Thank you again, John Watson. If you find any other files, be sure to bring them straight to me.”

“Will do.” John waved and walked to the nearest Tube station to catch a train to work.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

When John returned to the flat that evening, Sherlock was lying on the sofa in his dressing gown. It was unclear whether he had actually left the flat all day.

“I returned those files for you.” John ventured, when Sherlock did not appear to notice him.

“Hmm? Oh yes, thank you. I’m just working on the last few, then the rest can go back next week. Did Lestrade give you any more?”

“No,” said John shortly. “You didn’t ask me to bring anything back.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t either. When you take the rest back, just ask Lestrade if he has any more cold cases for me.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to take them back yourself?”

“Oh, you know, busy.” Sherlock waved a hand airily. “So, dinner? There’s a menu for the local Thai place on the fridge, they’re quite good although a little slow. If you ring in an order they’ll deliver. Get a Pad Thai for me, thanks.”

John muttered to himself and wondered why he was doing it, but he rang for the Thai food and paid for it when it arrived. By then Sherlock had leapt off the sofa and was standing by the window playing his violin. “Helps me to think,” was his only comment.

John put the food on the table, leaving the box of Pad Thai on the end where Sherlock would see it when he was ready. He ate his own dinner at the coffee table in front of the telly. His rather odd flatmate did not seem inclined to make conversation, nor did he seem interested in the food which he had specifically asked John to order for him.

Finally John asked, “Are you going to eat that, or should I put it in the fridge for tomorrow?”

“Hmm? Oh yes.” Sherlock put down the violin and sat at the table with his chopsticks, pushing the food around in the carton. “So, Afghanistan or Iraq?” he asked.

“Afghanistan,” said John shortly. Then he did a double take. “Sorry, how did you know…?”

“Your haircut says military, but you’ve been working in a medical clinic so army doctor – obvious. Your face is tanned but no tan above the wrists so you’ve been abroad but not sunbathing. Your limp is really bad when you walk or climb stairs, but you don’t ask for a chair when you stand, like you’ve forgotten about it, so it’s at least partly psychosomatic. That says the original circumstances of the injury were traumatic. Wounded in action then. Wounded in action, suntan – Afghanistan or Iraq.”

John finally closed his mouth. “That… was amazing.”

Sherlock looked surprised. “Do you think so?”

It was John’s turn to be surprised. “Of course it was. It was extraordinary, quite extraordinary.”

Sherlock smiled wryly. “That’s not what people normally say.”

“What do they normally say?”

“Piss off!” Sherlock and John grinned at each other for a moment.

Then John remembered the police files. “So you do this ‘detecting thing’ for a living then? Does it pay well?”

“I’m a consulting detective, only one in the world. I invented the job. When the police are out of their depth, which is always, they consult me. It pays enough. When I can get cases from Lestrade, that is. He hasn’t called for a while though, so I’ve been going through cold case files and I’m nearly finished these. When you take these back, you’ll need to ask Lestrade for more.”

John frowned. “Is there a reason why you can’t take them back and ask him yourself? He’s unlikely to just hand police files over to me, who he doesn’t know from Adam.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Sally Donovan is the main reason, but Anderson is one too. They don’t like me showing up their work. It’s just easier for everyone if I don’t go there in person. Lestrade knows how I work and he needs me too much to make a fuss about my methods. Just give him the files and tell him I need a new supply.”

“So if detective work pays ‘enough’ why does your brother pay your rent?”

Sherlock shrugged. “He thinks it gives him some control over my life and a reason to drop in here. You’ll certainly meet him eventually, but he’s not my problem right now.” Sherlock dropped the chopsticks and picked up the violin again. “Now, I need to think.”

Sherlock played one classical melody after another, each motif blending into the next or possibly he was composing bridging sections as he went, John was not familiar enough with classical music to know. Soon his eyes were drooping and he trooped off upstairs to bed. The violin music escorted him off to sleep and he had the best nightmare-free sleep he had been gifted with in a long time.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

Over the next few weeks John and Sherlock fell into a comfortable routine. John would get up and make breakfast for himself and tea for both of them. Sherlock didn’t seem to eat breakfast, or at least not when John was home. He did seem to drink a lot of milk, but not while John was watching. Then John would head off to work at the clinic and Sherlock would lie on the sofa and think. Apparently the last few of the cold cases were trickier to crack than Sherlock had thought.

In the evenings when John returned he would cook dinner for them both, though Sherlock didn’t usually eat much, or else they would order take-away food. John had never yet seen Sherlock leave the flat, which seemed a bit odd. Was Sherlock the laziest man the world had ever seen? Or was there some other reason why he never went out? Maybe he didn’t actually own any clothes apart from the blue silk dressing gown.

The evenings were mostly spent listening to Sherlock working on his cold cases. John did not often have much to contribute, but Sherlock appeared to like to talk out loud, and he did respond to John’s questions when John could think of anything to ask. This quite frequently lead to Sherlock’s insights which solved the cases, allowing John to exclaim “Brilliant!” and Sherlock to blush prettily. John decided that having a flat mate might be all right after all.

One Saturday morning John and Sherlock were having a quiet cup of tea after breakfast. John was trying to write in his blog as his therapist had asked him to do, but there was nothing going on in his life to write about. Sherlock was playing the violin again, with his back to the room, when Mrs Hudson came in.

“Yoo hoo! Just came to see how you were getting along, and I brought some fresh scones. Just this once you know, I’m your landlady not your housekeeper.”

“Thank you Mrs Hudson,” said John. “We’re getting along just fine.”

”Excellent, glad to hear it. Shall I leave the scones on the kitchen table, or do you want them in the fridge for later? So nice to have a clean fridge, you know,” she opened the fridge and peered inside, appearing satisfied with the leftover Chinese food from the night before. John did not see what was so exciting about leftovers.

“Oh, you seem to be almost out of milk. Do you need some? I have an extra carton in my fridge. Kind of a habit I got into when Sherlock used to use it up, now I always have extra and it keeps going off.”

“Oh, ta,” said John. “I don’t know where all the milk goes, it just seems to disappear.”

“I’ll just pop downstairs and bring it up.” Mrs Hudson clattered down the stairs and John turned to Sherlock.

“What _do_ you do with the milk, by the way? Unless you have a secret cereal stash or something? I never see you drinking it and you take your coffee black.”

“Experiments,” replied Sherlock briefly. “Milk blocks non-specific antibody binding. Cow colostrum would be even better, but it is too hard to source.”

John shuddered. “I’m sorry I asked. I’ll just make sure we have more around, yeah?”

Mrs Hudson returned and put the carton of milk in the fridge. “Ah,” she sighed. “Just like the old days. Except that the fridge is so clean, of course. I approve of army training if it teaches you to keep everything clean. Sherlock was always bringing home such dreadful experiments and keeping them in the fridge. It gave me so many frights, I can’t even tell you.”

“I’ve heard about some of the experiments. Sounds awful.”

“Oh, really?” Mrs Hudson looked surprised. “Have you been been talking to Inspector Lestrade, or Molly?”

“Er, Inspector Lestrade.” John was confused. “Who is Molly?”

“Oh, I forgot, you won’t know Molly Hooper. She works at St Bart’s, in the mortuary. Nice girl, not quite sure what she does there, but she used to supply Sherlock with the body parts for some of his more… exotic experiments.”

“Ew,” John wrinkled his nose. “If it ended up in the fridge, I don’t even want to know.”

Mrs Hudson shook her head. “No, you definitely don’t. Oh well, I’d better be running along. See you later.”

Sherlock called out “Good-bye, Mrs Hudson. My regards to Mrs Turner.” However she must have been too far down the stairs already, as she didn’t appear to hear him.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

The following week Sherlock had finally solved the last of the cold cases, and John was once again delegated to return the files to Inspector Lestrade. He tucked the folders into his work bag and stopped by the Yard on the way to the clinic.

Donovan was on desk duty again. “Oh, it’s the one who moved into the Freak’s old flat. John, was it?”

“John Watson. I’m here to see Detective Inspector Lestrade, please. I have some more files to return.”

Donovan rolled her eyes. “He must have had half our old cold cases tucked away under his bed or something. Where did you find them?”

John decided not to talk to her about Sherlock, they obviously had a difficult relationship. “I don’t think that matters, the point is that I am here to return them to D. I. Lestrade. If he isn’t here, I can stop by on my way home from work.”

Donovan muttered under her breath, “Jeez, the Freak’s manners seem to have rubbed off on you. Must be something about that flat.”

John ignored her, as just then Lestrade appeared. “Oh, you’ve got more files? Bring them to my office, thanks.”

They walked down the hall to Greg Lestrade’s office, where he closed the door and opened the files. “The Abby Grange case! I didn’t think this one would ever be solved. It was obvious that everyone in the house was lying their fool heads off, but I never thought even Sherlock would be able to sort the truth out of that mess of lies. But he did it – amazing!”

“It took him a while, I can tell you.” John agreed. “That was a tricky one. I think the breakthrough came when he realized that the way the rope had been cut and tied indicated a sailor had done it, but finding the connection with her trip to Australia was the hardest part.”

Greg gave him a peculiar look. “How do you know?”

John was confused. “I listened to him talk though it, and he played his bloody violin for hours – helps him think, he said.”

Greg turned pale and started like John had slapped him. “What do you mean? Sherlock jumped to his death from the roof of St Bart’s hospital two months ago.”

“No, that’s not possible.” It was John’s turn to be shocked. “I’ve been living with him in our flat for the last month. He solved these cases and asked me to get more cold cases for him. He said you never call him for cases any more.”

“That’s because he’s _dead_!” Greg gasped.

“Well, he conducts experiments on my milk, orders me to get Chinese food and solves cold cases. He doesn’t seem very dead to me.”

Greg snorted. “Yeah, that’s him all right. Must have been some kind of trick then – I wonder how he did it? Molly would know. God, Molly must be in on it! She was the one to certify him dead and handle the body.” Lestrade snatched up his jacket and pushed John ahead of him out of the door.

“Where are we going?”

“To see Molly Hooper and demand the truth.”

# # # # # # # # # # # #

Greg drove them St Bart’s hospital and stormed into the morgue where Molly was in the middle of an autopsy.

“How did Sherlock survive?” he demanded without preamble. “I know he did, so don’t try to give me that ‘he’s dead’ crap you dish out to the reporters. This is John Watson, resident of 221B Baker St. He knows Sherlock is alive too so speak freely, please.”

Molly burst into tears, leaving the two men staring awkwardly at her and one another.

“Oh God, I’m so glad someone else knows at last! I don’t know what to do! I’ll take you to him right now.” She stripped off her gloves and strode for the door, leaving John and Greg staring after her. She stuck her head back around the door. “Well, do you want to see him or not?”

They were silent in the lift up to the top floor of the hospital, unwilling to speak in front of the other people in the lift. They finally arrived at the top floor and Molly lead them to the last room.

“Mycroft arranged it all,” she almost whispered. “After Sherlock’s… fall, he was brought back here and I certified him dead and substituted another body for the funeral.” She opened the door and waved for them to go in. “And we brought him here.”

There, unconscious on the bed surrounded by quietly beeping monitors, was Sherlock Holmes.

John stepped forward to examine the man on the bed. Pale, thinner than when he had last seen him in the morning, with a bandage around his head. He had an IV running into the back of his right hand but no other evidence of medical procedures.

Molly was explaining again, “We had planned the jump, but we didn’t have a chance to rehearse it. He wore body armour but the coat must have changed the angle of his fall, and he hit his head. We got the best doctors to see him, his ribs have healed and all the bruises are gone – but he won’t wake up.” She was sniffling but not openly crying again. “I’ve been wanting to tell someone, get someone to help him, but I didn’t know who to tell. Mycroft…”

Greg interrupted her, “Mycroft felt that secrecy was the most important thing.” He rolled his eyes, not needing her whispered agreement to know that it was true.

John was still riveted to the spot, staring at the body of the unconscious Sherlock Holmes in the bed. He touched the long fingers of one pale hand – the violin callouses were still evident on the fingertips. The hand and the monitors showed no response to John’s touch, and pale face was still and unresponsive to their voices. “I don’t understand. I was talking to him in our flat this morning – how can he be _here_?”

Molly and Greg exchanged a worried look. If Sherlock was here, clearly he could not also be living in a flat with John and solving cold cases, could he? And yet the cold cases had been solved…

Finally, Greg took the lead. “Right, let’s go back to Baker St and see exactly what is going on there.”

# # # # # # # # # # # #

Greg drove all three of them back to Baker St. John leapt out of the car and raced up the stairs shouting “Sherlock! Are you home?”

Sherlock was sitting in the living room tapping away on John’s laptop.

“Hey!” said John. “That’s my laptop! And it was password protected!”

Sherlock smirked, “Harry’s birthday is not a secure password John. Oh, I see you brought Lestrade and Molly with you. What’s the occasion?”

Greg and Molly were staring at John, but once again it was Greg who spoke first. “Who are you talking to, John?”

“Sherlock! He’s right here helping himself to my laptop and probably messing up my blog!”

Once again Greg and Molly exchanged looks. “There’s no-one else here, John,” said Molly quietly.

Sherlock started violently, then stood up and walked over to stand in front of Greg. “You can’t hear or see me Greg?” He waved his hand in front of Greg’s face.

Greg not only couldn’t see Sherlock, he walked right _through_ him as he went to the couch and seated himself in front of the laptop. “It isn’t even logged in, John.”

John wasn’t listening. John had sat down hard on the floor when Greg had walked through Sherlock’s solid-seeming body. John reached out and touched Sherlock’s hand. Felt solid to him. Sherlock’s hand grasped his in a tight, almost involuntary grip.

“I’m right here, and I can prove it,” said Sherlock. “John, tell Gregory about the first case we worked together. You couldn’t possibly know the details. Just ask him if he remembers the Boscombe Valley affair, that dreadful Coroner and the Turner family.”

John turned to Lestrade and dutifully repeated the details set out by Sherlock. Greg’s eyes widened. “You couldn’t possibly know about that! It was four years ago, the first case I ever worked as a D.I.”

“With Sherlock Holmes,” John interrupted. “He’s telling me all about it.” John made a face. “Sounds terrible. Then there was the case of Lord St. Simon’s marriage. Or not-marriage. What?” John turned to face Sherlock. “I don’t understand.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “You don’t need to understand, in fact, it’s probably better if you don’t. Lestrade will remember though.”

Greg was in fact nodding cautiously. “All right, so if I admit that these details must be coming from Sherlock Holmes,” his eyes darted suspiciously around the room, “is he a ghost or something? Why can’t Molly and I see him?”

Molly interrupted, “But more importantly, how can we get him back into his body?”

There was silence in the flat for a moment, before John said hesitantly, “Sherlock, could you just walk out of here with us and get into the car and go to St Bart’s to be reunited with your body?”

Sherlock shook his head. “I can’t leave the flat. I’ve been trying for a while now. I knew there was something wrong from the start when I just felt like I didn’t want to leave. I forced myself to try a few times but I can’t get out of here at all.”

John hummed thoughtfully under his breath.

“What did he say?” Molly asked.

“No, he says he can’t leave the flat. I thought he was just a lazy sod who couldn’t be bothered to return his own files, but he says he’s known for a while that he can’t go out. Didn’t bother to tell me though.”

Molly tilted her head to one side. “What is it about the flat that keeps him here? Is it the flat or something else here? How did he get back here anyway, when the injury was at St Bart’s?”

John turned to Sherlock, “How did you get…”

Sherlock stopped him with an irritated wave. “I can hear her perfectly well. I don’t know. I don’t remember the fall at all. I just woke up here, in my pyjamas and my favourite dressing gown.”

John looked at him carefully. “You know, you are nearly always wearing that dressing gown. Could it be that your… soul is attracted to a dressing gown?”

Sherlock folded his arms and snorted. “Sounds implausible.”

Molly laughed outright. “Sherlock always was rather too invested in his clothes. Maybe he keeps his soul in his dressing gown pocket!”

Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. “Ridiculous as it sounds, it would be easy to test. Doesn’t have to just be the dressing gown either. We can take whatever it is outside and see if Sherlock comes with it.”

“Right,” said Sherlock with determination. “Let’s experiment.”

# # # # # # # # # # # #

Molly, John and Greg had to walk in and out of the door of 221B with several items each over the course of the next hour to determine which item would allow Sherlock to cross the threshold. With each item Sherlock stood anxiously on the threshold and attempted to cross, but it took quite some time to work it out. In the end it was not as Molly had thought, the dressing gown, the pyjamas, the cigarettes or the skull. John was the one who finally realized that he first became aware of Sherlock through his violin playing. They carried the violin in and out of the doorway several times without result, until Greg suggested actually playing it.

Molly, Greg and John all stared at each other and Sherlock flinched. “None of you has ever played the violin, have you?” He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “This is going to be awful. My poor Stradivarius! All right John, it will have to be you since only you can hear me. I’ll coach you.”

John gingerly picked up the violin and tucked it under his chin in his best “as seen on telly” style. Sherlock humphed under his breath but didn’t say anything out loud. Until John picked up the bow in his fist, when Sherlock groaned. “Didn’t you say you played in an orchestra?”

“Yes,” said John defensively, “but I played the clarinet, and that was quite some time ago.”

“All right, well if you want it to play, the first thing you need to do is tighten the hair by turning that screw at the end. A bow is always stored with the hair slack, never tight. Don’t touch the hair!” Sherlock exclaimed, as John went to grasp the bow around the middle to adjust the screw. “You’ll ruin it, and get rosin everywhere!”

John grumbled, but did as he was told. Then he was standing outside 221B with violin tucked under his chin and the bow poised over the strings. “Er, now what?” he asked with some embarrassment. “I don’t actually play you know.”

Molly giggled and Sherlock rolled his eyes again. “Just keep the bow parallel to the bridge (that’s the wooden bit in the middle) and draw the bow firmly against the strings in one long stroke. That should make a sound, at least.” He added under his breath, “Probably a godawful one, but at least it should be enough to test the theory.”

John shot him a dirty look but was concentrating on positioning the bow on the first violin string, as close to the base of the bow (Frog, John! It’s called the frog!) as he could manage. Sherlock was still wincing a lot but managed to refrain from overt criticism. He was standing just inside the doorway of 221B while John stood on the footpath just outside. Then John drew the bow down its length pressing firmly against the violin string. The violin howled and Sherlock stepped through the door of 221B and stood on the footpath, turning his face up to the sunshine and smiling.

John lifted the bow in his shock, the sound stopped and Sherlock was abruptly gone. “Shit!” exclaimed John. “Where did he go?”

“Did it work?” asked Molly with excitement.

“Yes!” said John, “He was out here for a moment, but then I stopped playing and he vanished again.”

Greg shrugged. “Did he go back inside?”

The three of them ran back inside 221B and up the stairs to the living room, where Sherlock was standing by the fireplace. He was grinning. “It worked! Just for a moment, but it worked!”

John replaced the violin carefully in its case. “But I can’t play all the way from here to St Bart’s. Would it be enough to take the violin to your hospital room and play there?”

Sherlock shrugged. “Not enough data to know, but we should try. Tomorrow. Tonight I need to teach you to play enough to make sounds for a few minutes without stopping. One bow-length will probably not be enough.”

Molly and Greg hurriedly made their excuses. One exposure to beginner violin playing had apparently been quite enough. Greg murmured something about taking Molly back to the hospital, unless she wanted to stop for dinner first? Molly blushed and said that dinner would be welcome, if Greg had time. Greg apparently had time, and he escorted Molly from the flat with his hand on the small of her back.

John and Sherlock watched them leave, then exchanged an amused look. So that was how the wind lay? Then Sherlock clapped his hands and recalled John’s attention to the violin lesson. “Let’s start with the classic beginner piece ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’…”

# # # # # # # # # # # #

The next morning Greg came by the flat to pick John up and take him to the hospital. John cradled the violin case on his lap. When they arrived at the hospital, Molly met them and they all went together to the top floor.

“How will we know if it is working?” Molly whispered, as John got out the violin and tensioned the bow.

Greg shrugged. “Either he will wake up, or maybe Sherlock will appear in the room.” He hesitated a moment. “Or else nothing might happen at all, I guess.”

“Well, if we are all ready for this…” John poised the bow over the strings, then started to play his much-rehearsed rendition of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. He kept the music flowing, the repetitive nature of the song helping with the phrasing. John had to watch the bow and the strings to keep control, but he glanced up at the monitors over Sherlock’s head every now and then as he played. Was the heart rate speeding up slightly?

Finally, John had to stop. He lifted the bow off the strings and stretched out his cramping right arm. “Damn, the violin was not designed for us southpaws.”

On the bed, Sherlock’s eyes snapped open. His voice was rusty with disuse but clear. “You’re a minority John, get used to it.”

Lestrade rolled his eyes. “Yep, that’s him all right. Wakes up in order to make a smart alec remark.”

But no-one was paying attention to him. Molly and John were both too busy hugging and crying over the figure in the bed.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

Sherlock was kept in hospital under observation for another day until his doctors and Mycroft were satisfied he was back to normal. Or whatever passed for normal for Sherlock, anyway. Then he was discharged to the care of John and Mrs Hudson.

Mrs Hudson shrieked when she first saw him, then hugged him and kissed him and promised him scones. She fussed over ‘her boys’ immoderately and supplied them both with food and excessive amounts of milk.

They saw very little of Greg and Molly. Apparently they were spending a lot of their spare time together.

They saw even less of Mycroft, but that suited them both very well.

It was nearly two weeks after Sherlock’s release from hospital when he finally broached the subject John had been wondering about.

“You’re wondering why I jumped from that building in the first place, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes. I assume it was to do with a case, but I can’t imagine what lead you to stage a suicidal leap as the only solution even _you_ could think of!”

Sherlock blushed at the implied compliment, but then frowned. “It was not my most elegant solution, I admit. And it had its obvious drawbacks. But at the time and under pressure it was the solution that could be made to work.” He shrugged. “There are always unforeseen circumstances, and even when we planned it Molly and I knew that it was a risky plan. But there was no alternative. My fall was absolutely required.”

He turned and pinned John with a steady stare. “And that’s where you came in. You were the unknown factor, and the only reason my plan was ultimately successful.”

It was John’s turn to blush.

“Moriarty’s net is not yet destroyed. It is temporarily in confusion, but his agents are still out there, including Sebastian Moran, the second most dangerous man in London after Moriarty himself. It is my life’s mission to completely eliminate the entire network of criminals. With you at my side, I know that together we can do it. This is a war, John. Are you ready to return to the battlefield?”

John replied fervently, “Oh God, yes.”

**THE END**


End file.
